ONG TRAIL 



'By KERJM1T A ROOSEVELT 



A.yTO(£RAPFiED EDITION 




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AUTOGRAPHED EDITION 



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THE LONG TRAIL 



I 




SVav dance of the Kikuyus in honor of the Great 
White Chief from across the water. 

tD,.a.i,.. bv C. B. Fans. af.e. a .hcto.rap. by the Authov] 



THE LONG TRAIL 



BY 



KERMIT ROOSEVELT 




NEW YORK 

THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS 

THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE 

1921 



COPYRIGHT. 1912. 1920. BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

COPYRIGHT. 1920, 1921. BY THE METROPOLITAN 

PUBLICATIONS, INC. 






5" 



g>r,|,A553700 



NOTE 

From Kermit Roosevelt's book, "The Happy 
Hunting-Grounds/' published by Messrs. Charles 
Scribner's Sons, we are privileged to print sepa- 
rately one chapter under the title, "The Long 
Trail." Mr. Roosevelt has supplied additional 
material to this chapter, which is published for the 
first time in this volume. The complete contents 
of "The Happy Hunting-Grounds" are as follows: 

I. The Happy Hunting-Grounds. 

II. In Quest of Sable Antelope. 

III. The Sheep of the Desert. 

IV. After Moose in New Brunswick. 

V. Two Book-Hunters in South Africa. 
VI. Seth BuUock— Sheriff of the Black Hills 
Country. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

War dance of the Kikuyus in honor of the Great 
White Chief from across the water . . Frontispiece 

FACHiTG PAGE 

Facsimile of a picture letter by father .... 24 
Snapshot of one of the famous Long Island outings 56 
After the lion-spearing by the Nandi tribesmen . 72 



THE LONG TRAIL 

THERE is a universal saying to the 
effect that it is when men are off in 
the wilds that they show themselves 
as they really are. As in the case with the 
majority of proverbs there is much truth 
in it, for without the minor comforts of life 
to smooth things down, and with even the 
elemental necessities more or less problem- 
atical, the inner man has an unusual op- 
portunity of showing himself — and he is 
not always attractive. A man may be a 
pleasant companion when you always 
meet him clad in dry clothes, and certain 
of substantial meals at regulated intervals, 
but the same cheery individual may seem 
a very different person when you are both 
on half rations, eaten cold, and have been 
drenched for three days — sleeping from 
utter exhaustion, cramped and wet. 
9 



THE LONG TRAIL 

My father had done much hunting with 
many and varied friends. I have often 
heard him say of some one whom I had 
thought an ideal hunting companion: 
"He's a good fellow, but he was always 
fishing about in the pot for the best piece 
of meat, and if there was but one partridge 
shot, he would try to roast it for himself. 
If there was any delicacy he wanted more 
than his share." Things assume such dif- 
ferent proportions in the wilds ; after two 
months living on palm-tree tops and mon- 
keys, a ten-cent can of condensed milk 
bought for three dollars from a rubber ex- 
plorer far exceeds in value the greatest 
delicacy of the season to the ordinary citi- 
zen who has a varied and sufficient menu 
at his command every day in the year. 

Even as small children father held us 
responsible to the law of the jungle. He 
would take us out on camping trips to a 
10 



THE LONG TRAIL 

neck of land four or five miles across the 
bay from home. We would row there in 
the afternoon, the boats laden with blan- 
kets and food. Then we would make a 
driftwood fire on which to fry our supper 
— usually bacon and chicken. I do not 
know whether it was the, to us, wild ro- 
mance of our position, or the keen appe- 
tite from the row, but never since then 
have I eaten such bacon. Not even the 
smallest child was allowed to show a dis- 
position to grab, or select his pieces of 
chicken — we were taught that that was an 
unpardonable offense out camping, and 
might cause the culprit to be left behind 
next time. And woe to anyone who in 
clumsily walking about kicked sand into 
the frying-pan. After supper we would 
heap more driftwood on the fire and drape 
ourselves in our blankets. Then we would 
stretch ourselves out in the sand while 
11 



THE LONG TRAIL 

father would tell us ghost stories. The 
smallest of us lay within reach of father 
w^here we could touch him if the story be- 
came too vivid for our nerves and we 
needed the reassuring feel of his clothes 
to bring us back to reality. There was, 
however, a delicious danger in being too 
near him. In stories in which the "haunt" 
seized his victim, father generally illus- 
trated the action by making a grab at the 
nearest child. After the stories were fin- 
ished we rolled up in our blankets and, 
thoroughly permeated with sand, we slept 
until the first faint light of dawn. Then 
there was the fire to be built up, and the 
breakfast cooked, and the long row home. 
As we rowed we chanted a ballad, usually 
of a seafaring nature; it might be "The 
Rhyme of the Three Sealers," or "The 
Galley Slave," or "Simon Danz." Father 
taught us these and many more viva voce, 
12 



THE LONG TRAIL 
when he was dressing for dinner. A child 
was not taken along on these "campings 
out" until he was six or seven. They took 
place three or four times a summer, and 
continued until after the African expedi- 
tion. By that time we were most of us 
away at work, scattered far and wide. 

Father always threw himself into our 
plays and romps when we were small as if 
he were no older than ourselves, and with 
all that he had seen and done and gone 
through, there was never anyone with so 
fresh and enthusiastic an attitude. His 
wonderful versatility and his enormous 
power of concentration and absorption 
were unequaled. He could turn from the 
consideration of the most grave problems 
of state to romp with us children as if 
there were not a worry in the world. 
Equally could he bury himself in an ex- 
haustive treatise on the History of the 
13 



THE LONG TRAIL 

Mongols or in the Hound of the Basker- 
villes. 

Father's physical successes were due to 
perseverance and endurance. He was not 
a natural athlete and, when at school we 
were surpassed by our schoolmates, he 
would console us with accounts of his own 
misadventures. Some men are born to 
excel at athletics, and the conscientious 
plodder can never rise to their heights, 
but he can, by infinite patience, learn to 
play a game sufficiently well to enjoy it 
and successfull}^ compete with the ma- 
jority of his comrades. 

We were early taught to ride and shoot, 
for that was something he felt that every 
boy should know. We were also taught 
to row and chop down trees (when we 
were first learning we used to do what 
Father called "beaver them down" ) . We 
none of us cared very greatly for either of 
14 



THE LONG TRAIL 

these latter forms of exercise and, after 
the first novelty had worn off, we kept 
them up mainly because we loved to do 
anything with Father. Father had al- 
ways cared for rowing. As a boy he went 
off alone or with his brothers or one of his 
cousins. When we were small one of us 
would be taken along as helmsman, but as 
soon as we were large enough we learned 
to pull an oar. He took great pride in 
the woodlands around Sagamore, and 
when he found some beautiful oak he 
would clear away the undergrowth and 
small trees that interfered with it and 
probably cut a trail to it from the 
nearest woodpath. 

We were taught to swim when we were 
very small and had a grand time playing 
around the float. There was one game 
which was particularly popular. It was 
called "stagecoach." Father sat in the 
15 



THE LONG TRAIL 

middle with all of us grouped around the 
edge of the float. He began by telling 
each of us what part of the coach we were ; 
one would be a wheel, another the whip, 
and so on. Then Father would tell a story 
about the coach. Each child had to jump 
into the water when the part he repre- 
sented was mentioned, and everyone 
jumped in when the word "stagecoach" 
was used. Those who were slow to jump 
or failed to notice when their part oc- 
curred had to pay forfeits, which were de- 
cided on after the play ended, which was 
always brought about by the "stagecoach" 
striking a rock on its way down a steep 
liill and falling all to pieces amid confu- 
sion and plunging into the bay. 

Father cared for neither sailing nor 
fishing, and, although we lived always be- 
side the water, and our cousins and play- 
mates were keen sailors and fishermen, 
16 



THE LONG TRAIL \ 

only one of us ever took to sailing, and but 
two to fishing. 

After we had all grown up and gone 
out into the world we would try to gather 
at Sagamore for Christmas, and then 
there would be a scurrying about to secure 
the sharpest of axes, and we would troop 
down with Father in the snow to some cor- 
ner of the woods that needed thinning. 
Those who early tired of the chopping 
would, with the grandchildren's aid, col- 
lect branches and deadwood for a bonfire, 
and, after it was started, Father would 
leave his chopping and join us in heaping 
on the brushwood. 

Until father sold his ranches in North 
Dakota he used to go out West each year 
for a month or so. Unfortunately, we 
were none of us old enough to be taken 
along, but we would wait eagerly for his 
letters, and the recipient of what we called 
17 



THE LONG TRAIL 

a picture letter gloried in the envy of the 
rest until another mail placed a substitute 
upon the pedestal. In these picture let- 
ters father would sketch scenes and inci- 
dents about the ranch or on his short hunt- 
ing trips. We read most of them to pieces, 
unluckily, but the other day I came across 
one of the non-picture letters that father 
wrote me : 

August 30, '96. 
Out on the prairie. 
I must send my little son a letter too, for his 
father loves him very much. I have just ridden 
into camp on Muley,* with a prongbuck strapped 
behind the saddle; I was out six hours before 
shooting it. Then we all sat down on the ground 
in the shade of the wagon and had dinner, and now 
I shall clean my gun, and then go and take a bath 
in a big pool nearby, where there is a large flat 
stone on the edge, so I don't have to get my feet 
muddy. I sleep in the buffalo hide bag and I never 
take my clothes off when I go to bed ! 

By the time we were twelve or thirteen 



* Fifteen years later when I was in Medora with 
Captain Seth Bullock, Muley was still alive and enjoying 
a life of ease in Joe Ferris's pastures. 

18 



THE LONG TRAIL 

we were encouraged to plan hunting trips 
in the West. Father never had time to go 
with us, but we would be sent out to some 
friend of his, like Captain Seth Bullock, 
to spend two or three weeks in the Black 
Hills, or perhaps we would go after duck 
and prairie chicken with Marvin Hewitt. 
Father would enter into all the plans and 
go down with us to the range to practise 
with rifle or shotgun, and when we came 
back we would go over every detail of the 
trip with him, reveling in his praise when 
he felt tliat we had acquitted ourselves 
well. 

Father was ever careful to correct state- 
ments to the effect that he was a crack 
shot. He would explain how little being 
one had to do with success and achieve- 
ment as a hunter. Perseverance, skill in 
tracking, quick vision, endurance, stamina 
and a cool head, coupled with average 
19 



THE LONG TRAIL 

ability as a marksman, produced far 
greater results than mere skill with a rifle 
— unaccompanied to any marked extent 
by the other attributes. It was the sum 
of all these qualities, each above the aver- 
age, but none emphasized to an extraor- 
dinary degree, that accounted for father's 
great success in the hunting field. He 
would point out many an excellent shot at 
a target who was of no use against game. 
Sometimes this would be due to lack of 
nerve. Father himself was equally cool 
and unconcerned whether his quarry was a 
charging lion or a jack-rabbit; with, when 
it came to the question of scoring a hit, the 
resultant advantage in the size of the for- 
mer as a target. In other instances a good 
man at the range was not so good in the 
field because he was accustomed to shoot- 
ing under conventional and regulated con- 
ditions, and fell down when it came to 
20 



THE LONG TRAIL 

shooting under disadvantageous circum- 
stances — if he had been running and were 
winded, if he were hungry or wet, or tired, 
or feeling the sun, if he were uncertain of 
the wind or the range. Sometimes, of 
course, a crack shot possesses all the other 
qualities; such is the case with Stewart 
Edward White, whom Cuninghame clas- 
sified as the best shot with whom he 
hunted in all his twenty-five years in 
the wilds. Father shot on a par with 
Cuninghame, and a good deal better 
than I, though not as well as Tarleton. 
I have often heard father regret the 
fact that he did not care for shooting with 
the shotgun. He pointed out that it was 
naturally the most accessible and least ex- 
pensive form of hunting. His eyesight 
made it almost impossible for him to 
attain much skill with a shotgun, and al- 
though as a boy and young man he went 
21 



THE LONG TRAIL 
off after duck for sport, in later years he 
never used a shotgun except for collecting 
specimens or shooting for the pot. He 
continually encouraged us to learn to 
shoot with the gun. In a letter he wrote 
me to Europe when I was off after 
chamois he said: "I have played tennis 
a little with both Archie and Quentin, and 
have shot with the rifle with Archie and 
seen that he has practised shotgun shoot- 
ing with Seaman." 

When my brother and myself were ten 
and eight, respectively, father took us and 
four of our cousins of approximately the 
same ages to the Great South Bay for a 
cruise, with some fishing and bird-shoot- 
ing thrown in, as the guest of Regis Post. 
It was a genuine sacrifice on father's part, 
for he loathed sailing, detested fishing and 
was, to say the least, lukewarm about 
bird-shooting. Rowing was the only 
22 



THE LONG TRAIL 
method of progression by water for which 
he cared. The trip was a great success, 
however, and father enjoyed it more than 
he anticipated, for with the help of our 
host he instructed us in caring for our- 
selves and our firearms. I had a venerable 
12-bore pin-fire gun, which was the first 
weapon father ever owned. It was usually 
known in the family as the "rust bore," 
because in the course of its eventful career 
it had become so pitted and scarred with 
rust that you could put in as much time 
as you wished cleaning and oiling without 
the slightest effect. I stood in no little 
awe of the pin-fire because of its recoil 
when fired, and as I was in addition a 
miserably poor shot, my bag on the Great 
South Bay trip was not large. It con- 
sisted of one reedbird, which father with 
infinite pains and determination at length 
succeeded in enabling me to shoot. I am 
23 



THE LONG TRAIL 

sure he never spent more time and eJBPort 
on the most difficult stalk after some 
coveted trophy in the West or in Africa. 
Father's hunting experiences had been 
confined to the United States, but he had 
taken especial interest in reading about 
Africa, the sportsman's paradise. When 
we were small he would read us incidents 
from the hunting books of Roualeyn Gor- 
don Gumming, or Samuel Baker, or 
Drummond, or Baldwin. These we al- 
ways referred to as "I stories," because 
they were told in the first person, and 
when we were sent to bed we would clamor 
for just one more, a petition that was 
seldom denied. Before we were old 
enough to appreciate the adventures we 
were shown tihe pictures, and, through 
Cornwallis Harris's beautiful colored 
prints in the Portraits of Game and Wild 
Animals of Southern Africa, we soon 
24 
















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k 



V<-=- 













yit^t^r^./ .. ^^Y-^^ 






Facsimile of a picture letter by father. 



THE LONG TRAIL 

learned to distinguish the great beasts of 
Africa. The younger Gordon Gumming 
came to stay with us at Sagamore, and 
when father would get him to tell us 
hunting incidents from his own varied 
career, we listened enthralled to a really 
living "I story." To us he was known as 
the "Elephant Man," for his prowess in 
the pursuit of the giant pachyderm. 

Then there was also the "Shark Man." 
He was an Australian, who told us most 
thrilling tales of encounters with sharks 
witnessed when among the pearl-divers. I 
remember vividly his description of seeing 
a shark attack one of the natives working 
for him. The man was pulled aboard only 
after the shark had bitten a great chunk 
from his side and exposed his heart, which 
they could see still beating. He said, 
"Master, master, big fish," before he died. 

The illustrations in Millais's Breath 
25 



THE LONG TRAIL 

from the Veldt filled us with delight, and 
to tliis day I know of no etching that 
affects nie as does the frontispiece by the 
author's father. It is called the "Last 
Trek." An old hunter is lying dead be- 
side his ox-wagon ; near him squat two of 
his Kafir boys, and in the distance graze 
herds of zebra and hartebeeste and giraffe. 
Of the mighty hunters that still sur- 
vived at that time, father admired most 
Mr. F. C. Selous. His books he knew al- 
most by heart. Whenever Selous came to 
the United States he would stay with us, 
and father would sit up till far into the 
night talking of wild life in the open. 
Selous, at sixty-five, enlisted in the late 
war as a private ; he rose to be captain, and 
was decorated with the D. S. O. for gal- 
lantry before he fell fighting the Germans 
in East Africa. No one could have de- 
vised a more fitting end for the gallant 
26 



THE LONG TRAIL 

old fellow than to die at the head of his 
men in a victorious battle on those plains 
he had roamed so often and loved so well, 
fighting against the worst and most dan- 
gerous beast of his generation. 

In 1887 father founded a hunting club 
called the "Boone and Crockett," after 
two of the most mighty hunters of 
America. No one was entitled to mem- 
bership who had not brought down in 
fair chase three species of American big 
game. The membership was limited to a 
hundred, and I well remember my father's 
pride when my brother and I quahfied and 
were eventually elected members. The 
club interests itself particularly in the con- 
servation of wild Hfe and the establish- 
ment of game refuges. Mr. Selous and 
other English hunters were among the 
associate members. 

In the summer of 1908 my father told 

27 



THE LONG TRAIL 

me that when his term in the White House 
ended the following spring he planned to 
make a trip to Africa, and that if I wished 
to do so I could accompany him. There 
was no need to ask whether I wanted to 
go. At school, when we were writing 
compositions, mine almost invariably took 
the form of some imaginary journey 
across the "Dark Continent." Still, father 
had ever made it a practice to talk to us as 
if we were contemporaries. He would 
never order or even tell us to follow a cer- 
tain line; instead, he discussed it with us, 
and let us draw our own conclusions. In 
that way we felt that, while we had his 
unreserved backing, we were yet acting on 
our own initiative and were ourselves re- 
sponsible for the results. If a boy is 
forced to do a thing he often makes but a 
half-hearted attempt to succeed, and lays 
his failure to the charge of the person who 
28 



THE LONG TRAIL 

forced him, although he might well have 
come through with flying colors had he 
felt that he was acting on his own respon- 
sibilit}^ In his discussions with us father 
could, of course, shape our opinions in 
what he thought the proper mould. 

In like manner, when it came to taking 
me to Africa father wanted me to go, but 
he also wanted me to thoroughly under- 
stand the pros and cons. He explained 
to me that it was a holiday that he was 
allowing himself at fifty, after a very busy 
life — that if I went I would have to make 
up my mind that my holiday was com- 
ing at the beginning of my life, and 
be prepared to work doubly hard to 
justify both him and myself for having 
taken it. He said that the great danger 
lay in my being unsettled, but he felt that, 
taken rightly, the experience could be 
made a valuable asset instead of a liability. 
29 



THE LONG TRAIL 

After we had once finished the discussion 
and settled that I was to go, father never 
referred to it again. He then set about 
preparing for the expedition. Mr. Ed- 
ward North Buxton was another African 
hunter whom he greatly admired, and it 
was to him and to Selous that he chiefly 
turned for aid in making his plans. It was 
often said of father that he was hasty and 
inclined to go off at half-cock. There was 
never anyone who was less so. He would 
gather his information and make his prep- 
arations with painstaking care, and then 
when the moment came to act he was thor- 
oughly equipped and prepared to do so 
with that lightning speed that his enemies 
characterized as rash hot-headedness. 

Father always claimed that it was by 
discounting and guarding against all pos- 
sible causes of failure that he won his suc- 
cesses. His last great battle, that for pre- 
30 



THE LONG TRAIL 

paredness for the part that "America the 
Unready" would have to play in the 
World War, was true to his life creed. 
For everything he laid his plans in ad- 
vance, foreseeing as far as was humanly 
possible each contingency to be encoun- 
tered. 

For the African expedition he made 
ready in every way. I was at the time at 
Harvard, and almost every letter brought 
some reference to preparations. One day 
it would be: "The Winchester rifles came 
out for trial and all of them were sighted 
wrong. I sent them back with rather an 
acid letter." Then again: "You and I 
will be so rusty when we reach Sir Alfred 
Pease's ranch that our first efforts at 
shooting are certain to be very bad. In 
March we will practise at Oyster Bay with 
the 30-30 until we get what I would call 
the 'rifle sense' back again, and this will 
31 



THE LONG TRAIL 

make it easier for us when, after a month's 
sea trip, we take up the business of 
hunting." 

A group of thirty or forty of the most 
famous zoologists and sportsmen pre- 
sented my fatlier with a heavy, double- 
barrelled gun. "At last I have tried the 
double-barrelled Holland Elephant rifle. 
It is a perfect beauty and it shoots very 
accurately, but of course the recoil is tre- 
mendous, and I fired very few shots. I 
shall get you to fire it two or three times 
at a target after we reach Africa, just so 
that you shall be thoroughly familiar w^ith 
it, if, or when, you use it after big game. 
There is no question that except under 
extraordinary circumstances it would be 
the best weapon for elephant, rhino and 
buffalo. I think the 405 Winchester will 
be as good for ever}i:hing else. 

"About all my African things are ready 
32 



THE LONG TRAIL 

now, or will be in a few days. I suppose 
yours are in good trim also (a surrepti- 
tious dig at a somewhat lackadaisical son) . 
I am pursuing my usual plan of taking 
all the precautions in advance." 

A few days later came another refer- 
ence to the Holland & Holland: "The 
double-barrelled four-fifty shot beauti- 
fully, but I was paralyzed at the direc- 
tions which accompanied it to the effect 
that two shots must always be fired in the 
morning before starting, as otherwise from 
the freshly oiled barrels the first shot 
would go high. This is all nonsense, and 
I shall simply have to see that the barrels 
are clean of the oil." The recoil of the 
big gun was so severe that it became a 
standing joke as to whether we did not 
fear it more than a charging elephant! 

Father gave the closest attention to 
every detail of the equipment. The first 
33 



THE LONG TRAIL 

provision lists prepared by his friends in 
England were drawn up on a presidential 
scale w^th champagne and pate de foies 
gras and all sorts of luxuries. These were 
blue-penciled and two American staples 
substituted — baked beans and canned to- 
matoes. Father always retained the ap- 
preciation of canned tomatoes gained in 
the early ranching days in the West. He 
would explain how delicious he had found 
it in the Bad Lands after eating the toma- 
toes to drink the juice from the can. In 
hunting in a temperate climate such as 
our West, a man can get along with but 
very little, and it is difficult to realize that 
a certain amount of luxury is necessary in 
the tropics to maintain oneself fit. Then, 
too, in Africa the question of transporta- 
tion was fairly simple — and almost every- 
where we were able to keep ourselves and 
the porters amply supplied with fresh 
34 



THE LONG TRAIL 

meat. Four years later, during the de- 
scent of the Duvida — the "River of 
Doubt" — we learned to our bitter cost 
what it meant to travel in the tropics as 
lightly equipped as one could, with but 
little hardship in the north. It was not, 
however, through our own lack of fore- 
thought, but due rather to the necessities 
and shifting chances of a difficult and dan- 
gerous exploring expedition. 

Even if it is true, as Napoleon said, that 
an army marches on its belly, still, it 
won't go far unless its feet are properly 
shod, and, since my father had a skin as 
tender as a baby's, he took every precau- 
tion that his boots should fit him properly 
and not rub. "The modified duffle-bags 
came all right. I suppose we will get the 
cotton-soled shoes, but I do not know. 
How do you hke the rubber-soled shoes? 
Don't you think before ordering other 
35 



THE LONG TRAIL 

pairs it would be as well to wait until you 
see the army shoes here, which are light 
and somehow look as if they were more the 
kind you ordinarily use? How many pairs 
have you now for the African trip, and 
how many more do you think you want?" 
Father was fifty years old in the Octo- 
ber before we left for Africa, and the 
varied experiences of his vigorous hf e had, 
as he used to say, battered and chipped 
him. One eye was to all intents useless 
from the effects of a boxing match, and 
from birth he had been so astigmatic as to 
be absolutely unable to use a rifle and 
almost unable to find his way in the woods 
without his glasses. He never went off 
without eight or ten pairs so distributed 
throughout his kit as to minimize the pos- 
sibility of being crippled through any or- 
dinary accident. Even so, anyone who 
has worn glasses in the tropics knows how 
36 



THE LONG TRAIL 

easily they fog over, and how hopeless 
they are in the rains. It was a continual 
source of amazement to see how skilfully 
father had discounted this handicap in 
advance and appeared to be unhampered 

by it. 

Another serious threat lay in the leg 
that had been injured when the carriage 
in which he was driving was run down by 
a trolley car, and the secret service man 
with him was killed. In September, 1908, 
he wrote me from Washington: "I have 
never gotten over the effects of the trolley- 
car accident six years ago, when, as you 
will remember, they had to cut down to the 
shin bone. The shock permanently dam- 
aged the bone and, if anything happens, 
there is always a chance of trouble which 
would be serious. Before I left Oyster 
Bay, while riding, I got a rap on the shin 
bone from a branch. This was either the 
37 



THE LONG TRAIL 

cause or the occasion of an inflammation, 
Which had grown so serious when I got 
back here that Doctor Rixey had to 
hastily take it in hand. For a couple of 
days it was uncertain whether we would 
not have to have another operation and 
remove some of the bones of the leg, but 
fortunately the doctor got it in hand all 
right, and moreover it has enabled me to 
learn just what I ouglit to do if I am 
threatened with similar trouble in 
Africa." 

His activity, however, was little ham- 
pered by his leg, for a few weeks later he 
wrote: "I have done very little jumping 
myself, and that only of the small jumps 
up to four feet, because it is evident that 
I have got to be pretty careful of my leg, 
and that an accident of at all a serious 
character might throw me out of gear for 
the African trip. This afternoon, by the 
38 



THE LONG TRAIL 

way, Archie Butt and I took a scramble 
down Rock Creek. It was raining and the 
rocks were slippery, and at one point I 
slipped off into the creek, but merely 
bruised myself in entirely safe places, not 
hurting my leg at all. When we came to 
the final and stiffest cliff climb, it was so 
dark that Archie couldn't get up." From 
which it may be seen that neither endur- 
ance nor skill suffered as a residt of the 
accident to the leg. Still, as Bret Harte 
says, "We always wink with the weaker 
eye," and when anything went wrong, the 
leg was sure to be implicated. Father 
suffered fearfully with it during the de- 
scent of the River of Doubt. One of the 
most constant pictures of father that I re- 
tain is at Sagamore after dinner on the 
piazza. He w^ould draw his chair out 
from the roofed-over part to where he 
could see the moon and the stars. When 
39 



THE LONG TRAIL 

things were black he would often quote 
Jasper Petulengro in Borrow's Laven- 
gro: "Life is sweet, brother. . 
There's day and night, brother, both sweet 
things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet 
things ; . . . and likewise there's a wind 
on the heath," and would add: "Yes, 
there's always the wind on the heath." 
From where he sat he looked across the 
fields to the dark woods, and over the tree- 
tops to the bay with the changing twin- 
kling lights of the small craft ; across the 
bay to the string of lamps along the cause- 
way leading to Centre Island, and beyond 
that again Long Island Sound with occa- 
sionally a "tall Fall Steamer light." For 
a while father would drink his coffee in 
silence, and then his rocking-chair would 
start creaking and he would say: "Do you 
remember that night in the Sotik when 
the gunbearers were skinning the big 
40 



THE LONG TRAIL 

lion?" or "What a lovely camp that was 
under the big tree in the Lado when we 
were hunting the giant eland?" 

We get three sorts and periods of en- 
joyment out of a hunting trip. The first 
is when the plans are being discussed and 
the outfit assembled; this is the pleasure 
of anticipation. The second is the enjoy- 
ment of the actual trip itself; and the 
third is the pleasure of retrospection when 
we sit round a blazing wood fire and talk 
over the incidents and adventures of the 
trip. There is no general rule to know 
which of the three gives the keenest joy. 
I can think of a different expedition in 
which each sort stands out in pre-emi- 
nence. Even if the trip has been excep- 
tionally hard and the luck unusually bad, 
the pleasures of anticipation and prepara- 
tion cannot be taken away, and frequently 
the retrospect is the more satisfactory be- 
41 



THE LONG TRAIL 

cause of the difficulties and discomforts 
surmounted. 

I think we enjoyed the African trip 
most in the actuahty, and that is saying a 
great deal. It was a wonderful "adven- 
ture" and all the world seemed young. 
Father has quoted in the foreword to 
African Game Trails: "I speak of Africa 
and golden joys." It was a line that I 
have heard him repeat to himself many 
times. In Africa everything was new. 
He reveled in the vast plains blackened 
with herds of grazing antelope. From his 
exhaustive reading and retentive memory 
he knew already the histor}^ and the habits 
of the different species of game. When 
we left camp in the earl}^ morning we 
never could foretell what we would run 
into by nightfall — we were prepared for 
anything from an elephant to a dik-dik — 
the graceful diminutive antelope no larger 
42 



THE LONG TRAIL 

tlian a hare. In the evening, after we had 
eaten, we would gather round the camp- 
fire — for in the highlands the evenings 
were chilly — and each would tell the ad- 
ventures of his day, and discuss plans 
for the morrow. Then we would start 
paralleling and comparing. Father 
would illustrate with adventures of 
the old days in our West; Cuning- 
hame from the lore gathered during his 
twenty years in Africa would relate 
some anecdote, and Mearns would talk 
of life among the wild tribes in the 
Philippines. 

Colonel Mearns belonged to the medi- 
cal corps in the army. He had come with 
us as an ornithologist, for throughout his 
military career he had been actively inter- 
ested in sending specimens from wherever 
he was serving to the Smithsonian Na- 
tional Museum in Washington. His mild 
43 



THE LONG TRAIL 

manner belied his fearless and intrepid 
disposition. A member of the expedition 
once came into camp with an account of 
the doctor, whom he had just run across 
— looking too benevolent for this world, 
engaged in what our companion described 
as " slaughtering humming-birds, pursu- 
ing them from bush to bush." One of his 
Philippine adventures filled us with a de- 
lighted interest for which I don't believe 
he fully appreciated the reason. He told 
us how, with a small force, he had been 
hemmed in by a large number of Moros. 
The Americans took refuge in a stockade 
on a hilltop. The Moros advanced time 
and again with the greatest gallantry, and 
IMearns explained how sorry he felt for 
them as they fell — some under the very 
walls of the stockade. In a musing tone 
at the end he added: "I slipped out of the 
stockade that night and collected a most 
44 



THE LONG TRAIL 

interesting series of skulls; they're in the 
Smithsonian todav." 

Father was the rare combination of a 
born raconteur — with the gift of putting 
in all the little details that make a story — 
and an equally good listener. He was an 
adept at drawing people out. His interest 
was so whole-hearted and obvious that the 
shyest, most tongue-tied adventurer found 
himself speaking with entire freedom. 
Everyone with whom we came in contact 
fell under the charm. Father invariably 
thought the best of a person, and for that 
very reason everyone was at his best with 
him — and felt bound to justify his confi- 
dence and judgment. With him I always 
thought of the Scotch story of the Mac- 
Gregor who, when a friend told him that 
it was an outrage that at a certain ban- 
quet he should have been given a seat 
half-way down the table, replied: "Where 
45 



THE LONG TRAIL 

the MacGregor sits is the head of the 
table!" Where father sat was always the 
head of the table, and yet he treated every- 
one with the same courtesy and simplicity, 
whether it was the governor of the Protec- 
torate or the poorest Boer settler. I re- 
member how amazed some were at the lack 
of formality in his relationship with the 
members of the expedition. Many people 
who have held high positions feel it in- 
cumbent on them to maintain a certain 
distance in their dealings with their less 
illustrious fellow men. If they let down 
the barrier they feel they would lose dig- 
nity. They are generally right, for their 
superiority is not innate, but the result of 
chance. With father it was otherwise. 
The respect and consideration felt for him 
could not have been greater, and would 
certainly not have been so sincere, had he 
built a seven-foot barrier about himself. 
46 



THE LONG TRAIL 

He was most essentially unselfish, and 
wanted no more than would have been his 
just due if the expedition, instead of being 
owing entirely to him, both financially and 
otherwise, had been planned and carried 
out by all of us. He was a natural cham- 
pion of the cause of every man, and not 
only in his books would he carefully give 
credit where it was due, but he would en- 
deavor to bring about recognition through 
outside channels. Thus he felt that Col- 
onel Rondon deserved wide acknowledg- 
ment for the years of exploring in the 
Brazilian Hinterland; and he brought it 
to the attention of the American and 
British Geographical Societies. As a re- 
sult, the former awarded the gold medal to 
Colonel Rondon. In the same way father 
championed the cause of the naturalists 
who went with him on his expeditions. He 
did his best to see that the museums to 
47 



THE LONG TRAIL 

which they belonged should appreciate 
their services and give them the oppor- 
tunity to follow the results through. 
When an expedition brings back material 
that has not been described, the museum 
publishes pamphlets listing the new spe- 
cies, and explaining their habitats and 
characteristics. This is rarely done by the 
man who did the actual collecting. Father, 
whenever it was feasible, arranged for 
the naturalists who had accompanied or 
taken part in the collecting to have the 
credit of writing the pamphlets describing 
the results of their work. To a layman 
this would not seem much, but in reality it 
means a great deal. Father did all he 
could to encourage his companions to 
write their experiences, for most of them 
had led eventful lives filled with unusual 
incident. When, as is often the case, the 
actor did not have the power of written 
48 



THE LONG TRAIL 

narrative, father would be the first to rec- 
ognize it, and knew that if inadequately- 
described, the most eventful careers may 
be of no more interest than the catalogue 
of ships in the Odyssey, or the "begat" 
chapters in the Bible. If, however, father 
felt that there existed a genuine ability to 
write, he would spare no efforts to place 
the articles ; in some cases he would write 
introductions, and in others reviews, of the 
book, if the results attained to that pro- 
portion. 

One of the most careful preparations 
that father made for the African expedi- 
tion was the choosing of the library. He 
selected as wide a range as possible, get- 
ting the smallest copy of each book that 
was obtainable with decent reading type. 
He wanted a certain number of volumes 
mainly for the contrast to the daily life. 
He told me that he had particularly en- 
49 



THE LONG TRAIL 

joyed Swinburne and Shelley in ranching 
days in the Bad Lands, because they were 
so totally foreign to the life and the coun- 
try — and supplied an excellent antidote to 
the daily round. Father read so rapidly 
that he had 1:o plan very carefully in 
order to have enough books to last him 
through a trip. He liked to have a mix- 
ture of serious and light literature — chaff, 
as he called the latter. When he had 
been reading histories and scientific dis- 
cussions and political treatises for a cer- 
tain length of time, he would plunge into 
an orgy of detective stories and novels 
about people cast away on desert islands. 
The plans for the Brazilian expedition 
came into being so unexpectedly that he 
could not choose his library with the usual 
care. He brought Gibbon's Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire in the Every- 
man's edition, and farmed out a volume to 
50 



THE LONG TRAIL 

each of us, and most satisfactory it proved 
to all. He also brought Marcus Aurelius 
and Epictetus, but when he tried to read 
them during the descent of the Rio da 
Duvida, they only served to fill him with 
indignation at their futility. Some trans- 
lations of Greek plays, not those of Gil- 
bert Murray, for which he had unstinted 
praise, met with but little better success, 
and we were nearly as badly off for read- 
ing matter as we were for provisions. I 
had brought along a selection of Portu- 
guese classics and a number of French 
novels. The former were useless to 
father, but Henri Bordeaux and Maurice 
Leblanc were grist to the mill. It was 
father's first introduction to Arsene, and 
he thoroughly enjoyed it — he liked the 
style, although for matter he preferred 
Conan Doyle. Father never cared very 
much about French novels — the French 
51 



THE LONG TRAIL 

books that he read most were scientific 
volumes — histories of the Mongols — and 
an occasional hunting book, but he after- 
ward became a great admirer of Henri 
Bordeaux. 

At last the time came when there was 
nothing left but the Oxford books of 
English and French verse. The one of 
English verse he had always disliked. He 
said that if there were to be any American 
poetry included, it should be at any rate 
a good selection. The choice from Long- 
fellow's poems appealed to him as particu- 
larly poor, and I think that it was for this 
reason that he disapproved of the whole 
collection. Be that as it may, I realized 
how hard up for something to read father 
must be when he asked me for my Oxford 
book of English verse. For French verse 
father had never cared. He said it didn't 
sing sufficiently. "The Song of Roland" 
52 



THE LONG TRAIL 

was the one exception he granted. It was, 
therefore, a still greater proof of distress 
when he borrowed the Oxford book of 
French verse. He always loved to tell 
afterward that when he first borrowed it 
he started criticizing, and I had threat- 
ened to take it away if he continued to 
assail my favorites. In spite of all this 
he found it infinitely preferable to Epic- 
tetus and Marcus Aurelius, and, indeed, 
became very fond of some of the selections. 
Villon and Ronsard particularly inter- 
ested him. 

When riding along through the wilder- 
ness father would often repeat poetry to 
himself. To learn a poem he had only to 
read it through a few times, and he seemed 
never to forget it. Sometimes we would 
repeat the poem together. It might be 
parts of the "Saga of King Olaf," or Kip- 
ling's "Rhyme of the Three Sealers," or 
53 



THE LONG TRAIL 

"Grave of a Hundred Head," or, per- 
haps, "The Bell Buoy" — or again it might 
be something from Swinburne or Shelley 
or Keats — or the "Ballad of Judas Isca- 
riot." He was above all fond of the poetry 
of the open, and I think we children got 
much of our love for the outdoor life, not 
only from actual example, but from the 
poetry that father taught us. 

There was an indissoluble bond between 
him and any of his old hunting com- 
panions, and in no matter what part of 
the world he met them, all else was tem- 
porarily forgotten in the eager exchange 
of reminiscences of old days. On the 
return from Africa, Seth Bullock, of 
Deadwood, met us in London. How de- 
lighted father was to see him, and how he 
enjoyed the captain's comments on Eng- 
land and things English ! One of the cap- 
tain's first remarks on reaching London 
54 



THE LONG TRAIL 

was to the effect that he was so glad to 
see father that he felt like hanging his hat 
on the dome of Saint Paul's and shooting 
it off. We were reminded of Artemus 
Ward's classic reply to the guard who 
found him tapping, with his cane, an in- 
scription in Westminster Abbey: "Come, 
come, sir, you mustn't do that. It isn't 
permitted, you know!" Whereupon Ar- 
temus Ward turned upon him: "What, 
mustn't do it? If I like it, I'll buy it!" 
It was never difficult to trail the captain. 
When my sister and I were going through 
Edinburgh Castle, the local guide showed 
us an ancient gun, firing a cluster of five 
or six barrels. With great amusement he 
told us how an American to whom he was 
showing the piece a few days previously 
had remarked that to be shot at with that 
gun must be like taking a shower bath. A 
few questions served to justify the con- 
55 



THE LONG TRAIL 

elusion we had immediately formed as to 
the identity of our predecessor. Father 
had him invited to the dinner given by the 
donors of the Holland & Holland ele- 
phant rifle. 

Of the hunting comrades of his early 
days, he told me that Mr. R. H. Munro 
Ferguson was the most satisfactory of 
all, for he met all requirements — always 
good-humored when things went wrong, 
possessing a keen sense of humor, under- 
standing the value of silent companion- 
ship, and so well read and informed as to 
be able to discuss appreciatively any of 
the multitudinous questions of literature 
or world affairs that interested my father. 

In Washington, when an old com- 
panion turned up he would be trium- 
phantly borne off to lunch, to find himself 
surrounded by famous scientists, authors, 
senators and foreign diplomats. Father 
56 




Snapshot taken by Kermit Roosevelt of one of the 
famous Long Island outings. Reading from left 
to right: George E. Roosevelt, John K. Roosevelt, 
Archibald Roosevelt, Gordon Roosevelt, Margaret 
Roosevelt, Ethel Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., 
Colonel Roosevelt, Alice Lee Roosevelt, Alexander 
Russell, Quentin Roosevelt. This was a "squaw 
picnic," so called by the Roosevelt boys because the 
girls were permitted to join the outing. 



THE LONG TRAIL 

would shift with hghtning rapidity from 
one to the other — first he might be dis- 
cussing some question of Indian policy 
and administration, next the attitude of a 
foreign power — then an author's latest 
novel — and a few moments later he would 
have led on Johnny Goff to telling an ex- 
perience with the cougar hounds. 

Any man who had hunted with father 
was ready to follow him to the ends of the 
earth, and no passage of time could di- 
minish his loyalty. With father the per- 
sonal equation counted for so much. He 
was so whole-heartedly interested in his 
companions — in their aspirations and 
achievements. In every detail he was 
keenly interested, and he would select 
from his library those volumes which he 
thought would most interest each com- 
panion, and, perhaps, develop in him the 
love of the wonderful avocation which he 

57 



THE LONG TRAIL 

himself found in reading. His efforts 
were not always crowned with success. 
Father felt that our African companion, 
R. J. Cuninghame, the "Bearded Mas- 
ter," as the natives called him, being 
Scotch should be interested in Scott's 
novels, so he selected from the "Pigskin 
Library" a copy of one of them — Waver- 
ly, I think it was. For some weeks Cun- 
inghame made progress, not rapid, it is 
true, for he confessed to finding the notes 
the most interesting part of the book ; then 
one day when they were sitting under a 
tree together in a rest during the noonday 
heat, and father, in accordance with his 
invariable custom, took out a book from 
his saddle-pocket, R. J. produced Wav- 
erly and started industriously to work on 
it. Father looked over his shoulder to see 
wliere he had got to, and, to his amused 
delight, found that Cuninghame had been 
58 



THE LONG TRAIL 

losing ground — ^he was three chapters far- 
ther back than he had been two weeks be- 
fore! 

We more than once had occasion to 
realize how largely the setting is respon- 
sible for much that we enjoy in the wilds. 
Father had told me of how he used to 
describe the bellowing of the bull elk as he 
would hear it ring out in the frozen still- 
ness of the forests of Wyoming. He 
thought of it, and talked of it, as a weird, 
romantic call — until one day when he was 
walking through the zoological gardens 
accompanied by the very person to whom 
he had so often given the description. As 
they passed the wapitis' enclosure, a bull 
bellowed, and father's illusions and credit 
were simultaneously shattered, for the ro- 
mantic call he had so often dwelt upon 
was, in a zoological park, nothing more 
than a loud and discordant sort of bray. 
59 



THE LONG TRAIL 

In spite of this lesson we would see 
something among the natives that was in- 
teresting- or unusual and get it to bring 
home, only to find that it was the exotic 
surroundings that had been responsible 
for a totallj^ fictitious charm. A wild hill 
tribe in Africa use anklets made from the 
skin of the colobus, a graceful, long-haired 
monkey cglored black and white. When 
father produced the anldets at home, the 
only thing really noticeable about them 
was the fact that they smelt ! 

Another equally unfortunate case was 
the affair of the beehives. The same hill 
tribe was very partial to honey. An indi- 
vidual's wealth was computed in the num- 
ber of beehives that he possessed. They 
were made out of hollowed logs three 
or four feet long and eight or ten inches 
in diameter. A wife or a cow was bought 
for an agreed upon number of beehives, 
60 



THE LONG TRAIL 

and when we were hunting, no matter how 
hot the trail might be, the native tracker 
would, if we came to a clearing and saw 
some bees hovering about the forest flow- 
ers, halt and offer up a prayer that the 
bees should deposit the honey in one of his 
hives. It seemed natural to bring a hive 
home, but viewed in the uncompromising 
light of the North Shore of Long Island 
it was merely a characterless, uninterest- 
ing log. 

Not the least of many delights of being 
a hunting companion of father's was his 
humor. No one could tell a better story, 
whether it was what he used to call one of 
his "old grouse in the gunroom" stories, 
or an account, with sidelights, of a con- 
temporaneous adventure. The former 
had to do with incidents in his early career 
in the cow camps of the Dakotas, or later 
on with the regiment in Cuba — and phases 
61 



THE LONG TRAIL 

and incidents of them soon became coin- 
current in the expedition. Father's humor 
was never under any circumstances ill- 
natured, or of such a sort as might make 
its object feel uncomfortable. If anything 
amusing occurred to a member of the ex- 
pedition, father would embroider the hap- 
pening in inimitable fashion, but always 
in such a way that the victim himself was 
the person most amused. The accom- 
panying drawing will serve as illustration. 
Pather and I had gone out to get some 
buck to eke out the food supply for the 
porters. We separated, but some time 
later I caught sight of father and 
thought I would join him and return 
to camp. I didn't pa}^ particular atten- 
tion to what he was doing, and as he 
was some way off I failed to notice that 
he was walking stooped to keep con- 
cealed by a rise of ground from some 
62 



THE LONG TRAIL 

buck he was stalking. The result was 
the picture. 

Before we started on the serious ex- 
ploring part of the Brazilian trip, we paid 
visits to several f azendas or ranches in the 
state of Matto Grosso, with the purpose 
of hunting jaguar, as well as the lesser 
game of the country. One of the f azendas 
at whicli we stayed belonged to the gov- 
ernor of the state. When we were wak- 
ened before daylight to start off on the 
hunt we were given in Brazilian fashion, 
the small cup of black coffee and piece of 
bread which constitutes the native Bra- 
zilian breakfast. We would then sally 
forth to return to the ranch not before 
noon, and sometimes much later, as the 
hunting luck dictated. We would find an 
enormous lunch waiting for us at the 
house. Father, who was accustomed to an 
American breakfast, remarked regretfully 
63 



THE LONG TRAIL 

that he wished the lunch were divided, or 
that at least part of it were used to sup- 
plement the black coffee at daybreak. The 
second morning, as I went down the hall, 
the dining-room door was ajar, and I 
caught sight of the table laden with the 
cold meats and salads that were to serve as 
part of our elaborate luncheon many dim 
hours hence. I hurried back to tell father, 
and we tiptoed cautiously into the dining- 
room, closing the door noiselessly behind 
us. While we were engaged in making 
rapid despatch of a cold chicken, we heard 
our hosts calling, and the next minute the 
head of the house popped in the door! 
As father said afterward, we felt and 
looked like two small boys caught stealing 
jam in the pantry. 

The Brazilian exploration was not so 
carefully planned as the African trip, 
because father had not intended to make 
64< 



THE LONG TRAIL 
much of an expedition. The first time he 
mentioned the idea was in April, 1913, in 
reply to a letter I wrote from Sao Paulo 
describing a short hunting expedition that 
I had made. "The forest must be lovely; 
some time I must get down to see you, and 
we'll take a fortnight's outing, and you 
shall hunt and I'U act as what in the North 
Woods we used to call ' Wangan man,' and 
keep camp!" 

Four months later he wrote that he was 
planning to come down and see me; that 
he had been asked to make addresses in 
Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, and "I shall 
take a naturalist with me, if, as I hope, I 
return via Paraguay and the Amazon." 
At the time it did not look as if it would 
be possible for me to go on the trip. In 
father's next letter he said that after he 
left me, "instead of returning in the ordi- 
nary tourist Bryan-Bryce-way, I am 
65 



THE LONG TRAIL 

going to see if it is possible to work across 
from the Plata into the valley of the 
Amazon, and come out through the Bra- 
zilian forest. This may not be possible. 
It won't be anything like our African trip. 
There will be no hunting and no adven- 
tures, so that I shall not have the pang I 
otherwise would about not taking you 
along." These plans were amphfied and 
extended a certain amount, but in the last 
letter I received they didn't include a very 
serious expedition. 

"I shall take the Springfield and the 
Fox on my trip, but I shall not expect to 
do any game-shooting. I think it would 
need the Bwana Merodadi, [My name 
among the natives in Africa] and not his 
stout and rheumatic elderly parent to do 
hunting in the Brazilian forest. I shall 
have a couple of naturalists with me of the 
Heller stamp, and I shall hope to get a 
6Q 



THE LONG TRAIL 

fair collection for the New York Museum 
— Fairfield Osborn's museum." 

It was at Rio that father first heard of 
the River of Doubt. Colonel Rondon in 
an exploring expedition had crossed a 
large river and no one knew where it went 
to. Father felt that to build dugouts and 
descend the river offered a chance to 
accomplish some genuine and interesting 
exploration. It was more of a trip than 
he had planned for, but the Brazilian 
Government arranged for Colonel Ron- 
don to make up an accompanying expedi- 
tion. 

When father went off into the wilds he 
was apt to be worried until he had done 
something which would in his mind justify 
the expedition and relieve it from the 
danger of being a fiasco. In Africa he 
wished to get at least one specimen each 
of the four great prizes — the lion, the 
67 



THE LONG TRAIL 

elephant, the buffalo, and the rhinoceros. 
It was the lion for which he was most keen 
• — and which he also felt was the most 
problematical. Luck was with us, and we 
had not been hunting many days before 
father's ambition was fulfilled. It was 
something that he had long desired — 
indeed it is the pinnacle of most hunters' 
ambitions — so it was a happy cavalcade 
that rode back to camp in the wake of the 
natives that were carrying the lioness 
slung on a long pole. The blacks were 
chanting a native song of triumph, and 
father was singing " Whack- fa-lal for 
Lanning's Ball," as sort of "chant pagan." 
Father was more fluent than exact in 
expressing himself in foreign languages. 
As he himself said of his French, he spoke 
it "as if it were a non- Aryan tongue, 
having neither gender nor tense." He 
would, however, always manage to make 
68 



THE LONG TRAIL 

himself understood, and never seemed to 
experience any difficulty in understanding 
his interlocutor. In Africa he had a most 
complicated combination of sign-language 
and coined words, and though I could 
rarely make out what he and his gun- 
bearer were talking about, they never 
appeared to have any difficulty in under- 
standing each other. Father could read 
Spanish, and he had not been in Brazil 
long before he could make out the trend 
of any conversation in Portuguese. With 
the Brazilians he always spoke French, or, 
on rare occasions, German. 

He was most conscientious about his 
writing. Almost every day when he came 
in from hunting he would settle down to 
work on the articles that were from time 
to time sent back to Scribner's. This daily 
task was far more onerous than any one 
who has not tried it can imagine. When 
69 



THE LONG TRAIL 

you come in from a long day's tramping, 
you feel most disinclined to concentrate on 
writing a careful and interesting account 
of the day's activities. Father was invari- 
ably good-humored about it, saying that 
he was paying for his fun. In Brazil 
when the mosquitoes and sand-flies were 
intolerable, he used to be forced to write 
swathed in a mosquito veil and with long 
gauntlets to protect hands and wrists. 

During the descent of the River of 
Doubt in Brazil there were many black 
moments. It was impossible to hazard a 
guess within a month or more as to when 
we would get through to the Amazon. 
We had dugout canoes, and when we came 
to serious rapids or waterfalls we were 
forced to cut a trail around to the quiet 
water below. Then we must make a 
corduroy road with the trunks of trees 
over which to haul the dugouts. All this 
70 



THE LONG TRAIL 

took a long time, and in some places where 
the river ran through gorges it was almost 
impossible. We lost in all six of the ten 
canoes with which we started, and of 
course much of our food-supply and 
general equipment. It was necessary to 
delay and build two more canoes — a 
doubly laborious task because of the axes 
and adzes which had gone down in the 
shipwrecks. The Brazil nuts upon which 
we had been counting to help out our 
food-supply had had an off year. If this 
had not been so we would have fared by 
no means badly, for these nuts may be 
ground into flour or roasted or prepared 
in a number of different ways. Another 
source upon which we counted failed us 
when we found that there were scarcely 
any fish in the river. For some inexplic- 
able reason many of the tributaries of the 
Amazon teem with fish, while others flow- 
71 



THE LONG TRAIL 

ing through similar country and under 
parallel conditions contain practically 
none. We went first onto half rations, 
and then were forced to still further 
reduce the issue. We had only the clothes 
in which we stood and were wet all day 
and slept wet throughout the night. There 
would be a heavy downpour, then out 
would come the sun and we would be 
steamed dry, only to be drenched once 
more a half -hour later. 

Working waist-deep in the water in an 
attempt to dislodge a canoe that had been 
thrown upon some rocks out in the stream, 
father shpped, and, of course, it was his 
weak leg that suffered. Then he came 
down with fever, and in his weakened con- 
dition was attacked with a veritable plague 
of deep abscesses. It can be readily under- 
stood that the entourage and environment 
were about as unsuitable for a sick man 
72 




^^ \ 



After the lion-spearing by the Nandi tribesmen. 

[Drawing by C. B. Falls, after a photograph by the Author] 



THE LONG TRAIL 

as any that could be imagined. Nothing 
but father's indomitable spirit brought 
him through. He was not to be downed 
by anything, although he knew well that 
the chances were against his coming out. 
He made up his mind that as long as he 
could, he would go along, but that once 
he could no longer travel, and held up the 
expedition, he would arrange for us to go 
on without him. Of course he did not at 
the time tell us this, but he reasoned that 
with our very limited supply of provisions, 
and the impossibility of living on the 
country, if the expedition halted it would 
not only be of no avail as far as he was 
concerned, but the chances would be 
strongly in favor of no one coming 
through. With it all he was invariably 
cheerful, and in the blackest times ever 
ready with a joke. Sick as he was, he 
gave no one any trouble. He would walk 
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THE LONG TRAIL 

slowly over the portages, resting every 
little while, and when the fever was not 
too severe we would, when we reached 
the farther end with the canoes, find him 
sitting propped against a tree reading a 
volume of Gibbon, or perhaps the Oxford 
book of verse. 

There was one particularly black night ; 
one of our best men had been shot and 
killed by a useless devil who escaped into 
the jungle, where he was undoubtedly 
killed by the Indians. We had been work- 
ing through a series of rapids that seemed 
interminable. There would be a long 
carry, a mile or so clear going, and then 
more rapids. The fever was high and 
father was out of his head. Doctor 
Cajazeira, who was one of the three 
Brazilians with us, divided with me the 
watch during the night. The scene is 
vivid before me. The black rushing river 
74 



THE LONG TRAIL 

with the great trees towering high above 
along the bank; the sodden earth under 
foot; for a few moments the stars would 
be shining, and then the sky would cloud 
over and the rain would fall in torrents, 
shutting out sky and trees and river. 
Father first began with poetry; over and 
over again he repeated "In Xanadu did 
Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome 
decree," then he started talking at random, 
but gradually he centred down to the ques- 
tion of supplies, which was, of course, 
occupying every one's mind. Part of the 
time he knew that I was there, and he 
would then ask me if I thought Cherrie 
had had enough to eat to keep going- 
Then he would forget my presence and 
keep saying to himself: "I cant work 
now, so I don't need much food, but he 
and Cherrie have worked all day with the 
canoes, they must have part of mine." 
75 



THE LONG TRAIL 

Then he would again realize my presence 
and question me as to just how much 
Cherrie had had. How good, faithful 
Cajazeira waked I do not know, but when 
his watch was due I felt him tap me on 
the shoulder, and crawled into my soggy 
hammock to sleep the sleep of the dead. 

Father's courage was an inspiration 
never to be forgotten by any of us ; with- 
out a murmur he would lie while Cajazeira 
lanced and drained the abscesses. When 
we got do^vn beyond the rapids the river 
widened so that instead of seeing the sun 
through the canyon of the trees for but a 
few hours each day, it hung above us all 
the day like a molten ball and broiled us 
as if the river were a grid on which we 
were made fast. To a sick man it must 
have been intolerable. 

It is when one is sick that one really 
longs for home. Lying in a hammock all 
76 



THE LONG TRAIL 

unwashed and unshaven, suffocating be- 
neath a mosquito-net, or tortured by mos- 
quitoes and sand-flies when one raises the 
net to let in a breath of air — it is then 
that one dreams of clean pa j amas and cool 
sheets and iced water. I have often heard 
father say when he was having a bout of 
fever at home, that it was almost a 
pleasure to be ill, particularly when you 
thought of all the past discomforts of 
fever in the wilds. 

Father's disappointment at not being 
able to take a physical part in the war — 
as he has said, "to pay with his body for 
his soul's desire" — was bitter. Strongly 
as he felt about going, I doubt if his dis- 
appointment was much more keen than 
that of the British and French statesmen 
and generals, who so readily realized what 
his presence would mean to the Allied 
cause, and more than once requested in 
77 



THE LONG TRAIL 

Washington that he be sent. Marshal 
Joffre made such a request in person, 
meeting with the usual evasive reply. 
Father took his disappointment as he had 
taken many another in his life, without 
letting it harm his usefulness, or discour- 
age his aggressive energ}^ "In the fell 
clutch of circumstance he did not wince 
or cry aloud." Indeed, the whole of 
Henley's poem might well apply to father 
if it were possible to eliminate from it 
the unfortunate marring undercurrent of 
braggadocio with which father's attitude 
was never for an instant tinged. With 
the indomitable courage that knew no 
deterrent he continued to fight his battle 
on this side to make America's entry no 
empty action, as it threatened to be. He 
wrote me that he had hoped that I would 
be with him in this greatest adventure of 
all, but that since it was not to be, he 
78 



THE LONG TRAIL 

could only be thankful that his four boys 
were permitted to do their part in the 
actual fighting. 

When in a little town in Germany my 
brotfier and I got news of my father's 
death, there kept running through my 
head with monotonous insistency Kip- 
ling's lines: 

"He scarce had need to doff his pride. 
Or slough the dress of earth. 
E'en as he trod that day to God 
So walked he from his birth. 
In simpleness and gentleness and honor and 
clean mirth." 

That was my father, to whose comrade- 
ship and guidance so many of us look 
forward in the Happy Hunting- Grounds. 



79 



m: ,!'i'{ym- '^k 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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